Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Cooking: I got an immersion blender for my birthday this month, and I used that last week to make some split pea soup. I just had a general idea on how to make it, so I was kind of winging it. My real problem was how much liquid to use. I kept adding more as I was cooking it. Then I went a bit crazy with the blender and didn't have any chunks of peas in it (I added some carrots and ham after the blending and cooked it longer). The taste I actually liked a lot, but instead of soup it was more of a pea paste. Whenever I reheated it, I dilute it with some water, and that really made it more appetizing. Otherwise it looked like I was eating baby vomit or something. I am excited to blend more stuff up, and it is a lot easier to clean than a regular blender.

Gaming: In my video game playing life. I haven't gotten EA NCAA College Football in a number of years, but I did get the 2010 version. Playing it in HD, the graphics are incredibly awesome. I've played it and after a play I was thinking to myself, "Man, that looked like a facemask." Sure enough the flag comes out. That is pretty cool. The recruiting in the game is pretty in depth. You have different pitches to give the recruits, you get limited time each week to call them, there is off season recruiting as well. I swear sometimes I spend more time recruiting than playing the actual game.

You to can institute change: I asked a manger at my local Kroger's a couple of weeks go why they only have a couple of bottles of Red Hook ESB on the shelf for the pick sic, six pack, and never full six packs of the beer. Well just last week they now carry six packs, I would like to think that I made some small impact locally. If only to get me inebriated.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

We get the older Star Boy this time by Jake Ekiss. He is part of a group of young local artists (Space-Gun Studios) that I think could do some great things. I always though this version of Star Boys costume would be a pain in the butt, but I think Jake did a great job on it. This was done at the last Wizard World Texas show.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Work stuff: I don't talk about my work much, but this time I am. Today I had one of those problems that I hate, in that I really am powerless to solve it besides just making phone calls. Plus, there are just so many layers to it. It goes like this:1. A sales rep thinks they are missing a shoe.2. They call their home office.3. The home office calls me.4. I have to find the original order and then call the company I ordered the item from.5. They find the order, track it, and then give me the info.6. I then call the company's home office.7. They then call the rep.

That is the basics some times there are more layers (IE. my boss gets the call and then he gives me the info, and I give it all back to him). Today's though was a huge cluster that I finally deduced that the company I order the hoes from never got the order, which was good because I also discovered that our customer ordered half of the shoes to go to the wrong sales rep. I think I could have spent those 2 hours doing something more productive. It was a total beating.

Other stuff: I talked to a cousin I haven't talked to in a few months. I was shocked to discover that her father (my uncle, natch) has throat cancer. My cousin quit her job to take care of him for the past 2 months (she is a nurse). Now that he has gotten a little bit better, she has gone back to work. If that wasn't bad enough for her, the day she got back home her boyfriend broke up with her. On top of that they still lease and apartment together which makes the whole thing super-weird.

NCAA Basketball: Just a quick shout out, and a hearty congratulations to the Baylor Men's basketball team for making the sweet sixteen. I never thought that program would survive after the scandal back in 2003. What a turn around by head coach Scott Drew.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Lightning Lad by the Great Rob Osborne (he likes it when I call him that). I first met him at a party at Wizard World Texas a few years ago, and he is just one of those people you meet in life you just hit it off with. I've had the pleasure of chatting with him and his wife a number of times since then. This sketch was done at CAPE (RIP, sniff), which was a huge Free Comic Book Day event in Dallas, about two years ago.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

This past weekend I went to the great city of Austin, TX. One, to go the the STAPLE comic book convention which focuses on the independent comics. Two, just to get away for the weekend. It had been over 2 1/2 years since the last time I left the DFW area, and that was great. The were supposed to be a group of us going, but it ended up being just me and my friend who runs the comic book shop I go to (even his girlfriend bailed less than a week to go). Quick tangent it was going to cost more to change my room from a queen to two double beds than the hotel room would cost (we got around it by someone sleeping on the recliner).

I was running behind myself and when I showed up my friend, Jake, wanted to drop off some packages at the post office. The first one had no power so then we had to go to another one. After a few more delays we ended up leaving about an hour or more later than I had wanted to leave. A mandatory stop on a road trip to Austin is to stop either on the way there or the way back in West, Texas at Czech Stop to get some kolaches and other pastries there. They are awesome, we stopped on the way down. I had a very nutritious lunch of cream cheese kolaches and pecan rolls.

The hour delay really killed us once we hit Austin as the Friday afternoon traffic was in full effect, and Austin has grown so quickly they only have one major highway to handle it. We drove past one Ramada Inn and I told my friend, "I bet that is our hotel.""No, man, the exit didn't Koenig on it anywhere." Which was the flaw in the directions I had, they said to exit Koenig,but the exit sign does have that name on there, it is FM 2222. Well we had to drive almost all the way through Austin at 15 MPH before I convinced my friend I was right. Eventually we made it back to hotel.

We both had a friend or two living in Austin, and what was really great was one of Jake's friends (John)lived about two miles away from the hotel. We went out that night to quite a few bars. The last one I remember (I wasn't driving) was Barflies when we pulled into the parking lot to begin with we were waved off by three police cars. We parked around the corner and went in anyways. We ended up crashing at John's house. I was lucky and got the couch. Jake slept on a hardwood floor.

Saturday, we had what was essentially brunch at a place called Ruby's BBQ. I had a brisket and sausage sandwich with slaw on it, with some home fries. It was awesome. I loved when I placed my order: The guy asked if I wanted creamy or vinegary slaw on my sandwich, and I told him creamy. He looked at me, nodded, and said "You bet you do."

Then we went to STAPLE for a few hours and it was a lot of fun. I will probably go into more details on the at the Captain Comics Board. I will say meeting Guy Davis was a pure highlight. There is also more and more female creators out there, and Monica Gallagher takes the prize for hottest person there. Oh my goodness. I bought something from her for that alone. The weirdest moment was when someone told me that "Travis" is one of his favorite names. He even mentioned how weird it was to say that to me.

We went out again that night. I was happy that my friend Larry came out with us as well, having only seen him once before in the past 15 years or so. We ended up at one club, and we were told that it was the CD release for a group. We were outside were they had the stage and the DJ ended up being one of Public Enemy's DJs which perked my ears up. He was spinning some tunes, and I was looking around and noticed there were a lot of lesbians there. It ended up being, I guess, a lesbian hip-hop duo, God-dess and She. To tell the truth, they were pretty good. I really liked what they did. God-dess was rapping and Jake asked me if the She was going to be the "hype woman" of the group. Of course I didn't know. Man, could she sing, she was great. She sang one song acapella. Later she sang one of my favorites: Michael Jackson's PYT.

I took easy that night, as I didn't want to drive home hungover, as I have done that many times before from Austin and it sucked. The rest of the night was uneventful. We left later than I wanted to Sunday as well, and I drove in the rain all the way back.